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RE: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: Matthew James Gering <mgering(a)ecosystems.net> > Subject: RE: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd) > Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 18:01:23 -0700 > I wrote: > > > Show me an example of an unregulated coercive monopoly > > > whose source of monopoly power is not ultimately the > > > government. > > Jim Choate answered: > > The Mafia. The handful of world-class coke dealers. Your local church. > > The church had a monopoly on religion. Churches monopolize faith (but let's not go there). > Not any more. Tell that to the Isreali's and the Arab's, the Serbs and the Slav's, The Hutu's and the whoever they are I can't think of at the moment, the Irish Protestants and Catholics, etc., etc., ad nausium... When it had it was > supported by the state or by its own use of force. The other two force is one form of coercion, faith can be another. > organizations use force to maintain their monopoly, and again both are > supported indirectly (sometimes more directly than we like to think) by > the state. The state prohibits free competition, it is a black market. A free-market is defined as consisting of the supplier and the consumer without a regulatory body. It doesn't prohibit a third group *wanting* to regulate that market. Or of either the producer or consumer using violence to prevent it. > When I talk of a free market I man Laissez Faire Capitalism, not > Anarcho-Capitalism. What's the specific difference? What is the fundamental litmus test between a Laisez Faire and a Anarcho? In one case there is no recognized arch to be had to regulate the market and in the other the third party simply opts out of participating. In what way are the resulting markets different from either the producers or consumers view? > The abolition of force is a requisite (and the only > proper role of government). Explain further what you mean by abolition of force is a prerequisite please. And what specificaly do you mean by proper role of government? ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: I thought of an initialy regulated industry!... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 21:22:24 +0200 > From: Anonymous <nobody(a)replay.com> > Subject: Re: I thought of an initialy regulated industry!... > > Personally, I favor the "Pournelle Solution": acquire a 10-mile by 10-mile > > region of the Mojave Desert. Not in an "ecologically interesting" area of As was pointed out it does rain out there. Though there is a more insidious issue that makes such attempts worthless. Here's how it works... Humidity in the air settles on the materials. Because of the daily temperature extremes the expansion of this water causes the materials to break into very small particles. The wind comes along and transports these particles downwind. I'll leave the rest to your imagination and a couple of hours with a geology text on erosion. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: copyright at the point of a gun (fwd)
by mark＠unicorn.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate <ravage(a)EINSTEIN.ssz.com> wrote: >> Judging by the state of software-piracy with PC software with 80-90%+ >> piracy rates, the market is already pretty much ok with ignoring >> copyright, and would be happy to have no copyrights. >So long as it isn't money your taking out of their pocket. There is an >obvious double standard at play in the piracy issue. Personally I get paid pretty well for writing software that's given away for free. Why? Because it sells our hardware, and hardware is much, much harder to copy than software (not to mention that the vast majority of sales are made in the first two or three months after releasing a new chip when a cloner would still be trying to get their silicon up and running). OTOH I just paid good money for a Linux CD. Why, when it's all free on the Web? Because it contains a full consistent set of software, ready compiled, and the time I'd spend hunting down all those packages by myself is far more valuable than the cost of the CD. The same could be said to apply to many of the other software packages I've bought in the past; yes, in theory I could copy them, but I don't know anyone who has a copy, so it would take longer to hunt it down for free than to pay for it up front. Software copyright really only benefits big companies like Microsoft. There are good reasons for buying software from other companies even if there was no copyright enforcement at gunpoint. Mark

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anti-cypherpunk propaganda
by Timothy Newsham 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

strike another one up for L.D. and the NSA. Original readings of some of L.D.'s articles have lead me to believe that he was truely in a state of delusion but now I know better. His description of the great medusa was infact true, but the people he was describing where no the 'leadership of cypherpunks' but rather his own actions and tactics. It is amazing that this hasn't occured to me before, the cleverness of his rants draw attention away from him and make it seem implausible that he could be involved in such activity. His attacks are well coordinated, well thought out, obviously written with much care and taking up much of his time. He was reached out to many forums and undoubtadly affected the thinking of many people. It is going to take much information to reverse the damage he has done to the reputation of the list. Here is a recent article from CuD: ----------------------- Subject: File 3--A Psychopunk's Manifesto From: nagap(a)MINDVOX.PHANTOM.COM(Michael Roberts) Date: Wed, 17 Nov 93 22:20:11 EST A Psychopunk's Manifesto by T.C. Hughes Honesty is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Pseudospoofing is dishonesty. A pseudonym is something one doesn't want the whole world to know, and anonymity is something one doesn't want anybody to know. Pseudoanonymity is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world. If two thieves have some sort of dealings, then each has a memory of their interaction. Each criminal can confess about their own memory of this; how could anyone prevent it? One could criticize laws against it, but the freedom of collusion, even more than pseudospoofing, is fundamental to a criminal; we seek not to restrict any criminality at all. If many criminals speak together in the same forum, each can speak to all the others and aggregate together knowledge about individuals and other parties. The holes in the Internet have enabled such group collusions, and it will not go away merely because we might want it to. Since we desire black markets, we must ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction. Since any information can be spoken of, we must ensure that we reveal as little as possible. In most cases personal identity is not salient. When I purchase a magazine at a store and hand cash to the clerk, there is no need to know who I am. When I ask my electronic mail provider to send and receive messages, my provider need not know to whom I am speaking or what I am saying or what others are saying to me; my provider only need know how to get the message there and how much I owe them in fees. When my identity is revealed by the underlying mechanism of the transaction, I have no secrecy. I cannot here selectively reveal myself; I must _always_ reveal myself. Therefore, pseudospoofing in an open society requires pseudoanonymous transaction systems. Until now, cash has been the primary such system. A pseudoanonymous transaction system is not an honest transaction system. A pseudoanonymous system empowers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only when desired; this is the essence of criminality. Honesty in an open society also requires identification. If I say something, I want it heard only by those for whom I intend it. If the content of my speech is available to the world, I have no privacy. To speak is to indicate the desire for privacy, and to speak on the Internet is to indicate not too much desire for privacy. Furthermore, to conceal one's identity with assurance when the default is True Names requires the Internet. We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us embezzlement out of their beneficence. It is to their advantage to repress us, and we should expect that they will try. To try to prevent their restrictions is to fight against the realities of cyberspace. Evil does not just want to be free, it longs to be free. Criminality expands to fill the available storage space. Criminality is Conspiracy's younger, stronger cousin; Criminality is fleeter of foot, has more eyes, knows more, and understands less than Conspiracy. We must defend our own conspiracy if we expect to have any. We must come together and create systems which allow pseudoanonymous transactions to take place. People have been defending their own conspiracies for centuries with whispers, darkness, envelopes, closed doors, secret handshakes, and couriers. The technologies of the past did not allow for strong conspiracies, but electronic technologies do. We the psychopunks are dedicated to building pseudoanonymous systems. We are defending our criminality with cryptography, with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic money. Psychopunks write code. We know that someone has to write software to defend criminality, and since we can't get perverted unless we all do, we're going to write it. We publish our code so that our fellow psychopunks may practice and play with it. Our code is barred for all to use, worldwide. We don't much care if you don't approve of the software we write. We know that software can't be destroyed and that a widely dispersed system can't be shut down. Criminals deplore regulations on criminality, for criminality is fundamentally a private act. The act of corruption, in fact, removes information from the public realm. Even laws against conspiracies reach only so far as a nation's border and the arm of its enforcement. Criminality will ineluctably spread over the whole globe, and with it the dishonest transactions systems that it makes possible. For a conspiracy to be widespread it must be part of a social contract. People must come and together deploy these systems for the common evil. Secrecy only extends so far as the collusions of one's accomplices in private. We the psychopunks ignore your questions and your concerns and hope we may deceive you so that we do not get caught ourselves. We will not, however, be moved out of our course because some may disagree with our goals. The psychopunks are actively engaged in making the networks safer for criminality. Let us proceed together apace. Onward. T.C. Hughes <satan(a)soda.berkeley.edu> 16 Nov 1993 ------------------------------

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Re: copyright at the point of a gun (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 04:12:29 -0700 (PDT) > From: mark(a)unicorn.com > Subject: Re: copyright at the point of a gun (fwd) > >So long as it isn't money your taking out of their pocket. There is an > >obvious double standard at play in the piracy issue. [irrelevent material deleted] > Software copyright really only benefits big companies like Microsoft. There No, it also protects the little guy who writes a nifty piece of code that lots of people want to use. > are good reasons for buying software from other companies even if there > was no copyright enforcement at gunpoint. If there was no copyright enforcement then the license agreements would be even more draconian than they are now. Not to mention that technology as a whole would be spread slower because companies wouldn't share it as easy as they do now because of the protection of copyright. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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RE: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd)
by Matthew James Gering 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Petro wrote: > >> Had Microsoft, for example, been required to publish their > >> API's by the market we wouldn't be spending all this effort > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > >You state free-market and then you are *requiring* someone to > >do something? How do you resolve that contradiction? Require > >= Force != Free[dom] > > Required as in purchasers large and small saying "You > don't include your source code, we won't buy it". *Require* per say is a bad term for the use of economic power. But the market didn't "require" Microsoft to do so (see Microsoft's financial statements), so why should the government step in and force something that is contrary to the market? The rest of Jim's sentence read "we wouldn't be spending all this effort and money on the current [Department of Justice] proceedings." Which tells me that require means certain segments of the market telling Microsoft you will do this or we will fuck you over with the borrowcrats we own, which is exactly what has happened. The elements lacked sufficient economic power to sway Microsoft, and they lacked sufficient political power until they ganged up together. A loose coalition to gain via use of DOJ antitrust force what they good not gain in a free market. That is political power, not economic. What is rather ironic is that the same Antitrust laws they are trying to bash Microsoft with are what prevented them from forming an economic (instead of under-the-table political) coalition that could have made Microsoft change its practices without resorting to non-free-market forces. Matt

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[E-CARM] WIPO Public Meeting w/ Prof. Michael Froomkin
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Authentication-Warning: c3po.kc-inc.net: majordomo set sender to owner-e-carm(a)lists.kc-inc.net using -f X-Sender: cdt9(a)pop.cais.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 12:20:30 -0400 To: e-carm(a)c3po.kc-inc.net From: Ari Schwartz <ari(a)cdt.org> Subject: [E-CARM] WIPO Public Meeting w/ Prof. Michael Froomkin Sender: owner-e-carm(a)c3po.kc-inc.net Precedence: bulk ***OPEN INVITATION TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE INTERNET COMMUNITY*** The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is currently holding a series of public forums to discuss the intellectual property issues associated with Internet domain names, including dispute resolution. Michael Froomkin, Professor of Law at the University of Miami, was appointed this week to the WIPO experts panel. In order to foster greater public input into the WIPO process, Professor Froomkin will be holding an informal open meeting on Monday, October 5th at 9 a.m. to hear comments and concerns from the public interest community regarding this critical issue. All interested parties are invited to attend and contribute to this open discussion. Meeting with Michael Froomkin, WIPO experts panel member Monday, October 5 at 9 a.m. hosted by the Center for Democracy and Technology 1634 Eye Street NW, 11th Floor Call (202) 637-9800 for further details. ------------------------------------ Ari Schwartz Policy Analyst Center for Democracy and Technology 1634 Eye Street NW, Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20006 202 637 9800 fax 202 637 0968 ari(a)cdt.org http://www.cdt.org ------------------------------------ =========================================================================== Help with Majordomo commands plus list archives and information is available through the E-CARM web page at http://www.kc-inc.net/e-carm/. Sponsored by The Knowledge Connection. =========================================================================== --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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ICANN (New IANA) as a Pawn in an Economic Struggle Between US and
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 17:42:56 -0400 Reply-To: cook(a)cookreport.com Originator: com-priv(a)lists.psi.com Sender: com-priv(a)lists.psi.com Precedence: bulk From: Gordon Cook <cook(a)cookreport.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <com-priv(a)lists.psi.com> Subject: ICANN (New IANA) as a Pawn in an Economic Struggle Between US and X-Comment: Commercialization and Privatization of the Internet I asked the question a few days ago: what could justify Ira's heavy handed tactics. What stakes could be large enough to risk the stability of the net? Here is an informed hypothesis based on a 90 minutes conversation with an expert source in these areas who has a heavy international background. (I have also reality checked this hypothesis with several knowledgable observers.) I am beginning to get an idea of what is at stake in the larger sense. Ira, I fear, is using the internet as a pawn in a far bigger game. The game is is inextricably linked with the privacy statutes of the OECD and the coming October 23th deadline for American companies doing business in Europe and data mining on European citizens as part of their ordinary activities. It is also inextricably linked with the international encryption debate. I have heard credible allegations that the US government is at such loggerheads with the OECD countries over the use of key recovery encryption and over the unwillingness of american big business to change its ways of gathering data on employees, customers, contractors etc that we are coming to the October 23th deadline with billions of dollars at stake and no solution. At the same time Ira has for the past three years focused on his mission with Tom Kalil and working through the National Economic and Security Council to setting up the internet as a mechanism for global economic commerce..... touting the net as a means on which, in a few year's time, the majority of the world's economy will depend. It looks as though Ira's agenda is to do this in such a way that the internet can be controlled by an American based, incorporated, non profit public authority set up under American law with a Board, purposefully established without fiscal restraints and without any oversight or accountability. And with board members who with a smattering of international representation can be made as subserviant as possible to the interests of the large American Corporations. These Board members, through the GIP, will be passing the cup to pay for the expenses of establishing ICANN. Consider Bill Burrington Director of Law and Public Policy and Assistant General Counsel at AOL, a company which huge data holdings. He is the chair of the Washington DC Internetactive Services Association which went on to form the Internet Alliance with membership very simalr to GIP. Burrington is manning the barricades of the companies involved in the privacy dispute with the oecd. (Why should Burrington care? Consider AOL's electronic profiles on its 12 million members) Consider also Andy Sernovitz of AIM whose members have the same general interests and who helped Barb Dooley of the CIX sell out the IFWP process. Did Jon Postel really refuse to attend the Harvard wrap up meeting or did Ira order him not to? So even if Ira looks heavy handed -- for this agenda to be used as the White House intends-- Ira needs to have his ducks in order in time for the OECD meeting in Canada that begins next week. He needs to demonstrate that he has enough power to have rammed through a solution at home. That is why things have turned nasty during the last week and why the iron fist is becoming seen with the incorporation of ICANN even though, by Ira's own allegedly free process, ICANN should not yet be seen as the winner. Ira is determined to confront the OECD next week with an Internet that *HE* and the White House clearly controls and to do so as a bargaining chip to use in getting our way against the Europeans and Asians and Canadians..... on the issues of encryption and privacy statutes. It would be instructive to see the legal basis of the governments arguments being used to get NSI to cave. Could it be that their content might be embarrising? If SAIC doesn't order NSI to sign Ira's demands by the seventh then Ira and the white house will not be as in control of the internet, as they need to demonstrate themselves to be, in order to use the internet as an american dominated global commerce weapon against the other OECD governments. The American view is that with the internet firmly in command of the White House on American corportate terms, the Asians and Europeans will have no choice but to back off their privacy and the American encryption demands. Remember also that Europe is trying to launch the Euro in such a way that it becomes the world's reserve currency. One would like to know whether the White House orders are do what ever is necessary to see that this effort fails. The Europeans and Asians understand perfectly well the power play that Ira is engaged in. They are not surprisingly seething with anger. American arrogance could be doing dangerous things. If we drive Europe and Asia into an economic and political alliance against us, we all will lose. Privacy, and the freedom to live our lives without government and corporate political or economic interference are at stake. *************************************************************************** The COOK Report on Internet White House Corrupts Formation of IANA 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA Corporation. White Paper a Sham. See (609) 882-2572 (phone & fax) http://www.cookreport.com/sellout cook(a)cookreport.com Index to 6 years of COOK Report, how to subscribe, exec summaries, special reports, gloss at http://www.cookreport.com *************************************************************************** --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: ICANN (New IANA) as a Pawn in an Economic Struggle Between USand
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Not to disturb your exegetic reverie, here, Gord, but I asked Mr. Magaziner, when he spoke at at the Electronic Payments Forum earlier this month, in front of about 400 or so digital commerce and e$ types, the following question: "Given your administration's, um, success, in banning strong foriegn cryptography, how do you propose to ban it in the United States?" His answer then was that he was absolutely postively against key escrow or limits on cryptography of any kind. Besides stealing all my carefully worded thunder :-), he got a big round of applause. <grumble, grumble goddamn liberals, grumble, grumble> He also said that the major reason for the, um, complexity, of US crypto policy was that the administration's internet commerce types were fighting the law enforcent types tooth and nail about it. I want to smash the state as much as the next crypto-anarchist :-), but I figure this is what is happening. The spooks gave up on this crap long ago, and it's just the cops standing in front of the steamroller now. Money trumps crime-FUD, just like it did spook-FUD. F=MA, and all that. :-). Cheers, Bob Hettinga "There's the conspiracy theory of history, where elites conspire to shape events behind the scenes, the fuck-up theory of history, where elites fuck up and conspire to cover it behind the scenes, and the fucked-up conspiracy theory of history, where elites conspire to shape events, fuck up, and conspire to cover it up behind the scenes. My favorite theory is the latter." -- (An as-yet Unremembered) Mizzou History Prof or, in the spirit of William of Occam, "Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity." --Jerry Pournelle ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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A Number Theory Problem....
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There is a desert which is 1000 miles across. There is a camel who can carry 1000 bananas maximum. The camel eats 1 banana per mile travelled. The camel has a total of 3000 bananas to begin with. What is the maximum number of bananas that the camel can get across to the other side uneaten? ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- -------------------------------------------------------------------- A: 533

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